"Don't worry, I won't keep the house. Once Dean recovers, I'll have him transfer the title back."
What a picture-perfect saint.
If I hadn't seen with my own eyes that the contract was dated six months ago, I might have actually believed her.
Marvin snatched the copies from my hand and tore them to shreds.
"Aunt Myra, this has nothing to do with you!"
"Dad gave it to you willingly. Nobody's taking it away!"
Imogen chimed right in.
"Exactly! Mom, stop bullying Aunt Myra!"
Watching this touching display of filial devotion—directed at the wrong mother—made my stomach turn.
I couldn't stand to look at them for another second. I turned and walked away.
Behind me, Myra let out a soft, pitiful sigh.
"This is all my fault. I've caused a misunderstanding with your mother..."
And then my children's eager voices, rushing to comfort her.
"It's not your fault, Aunt Myra."
"It's my mom who's petty and cold-blooded!"
I didn't go home.
That place didn't belong to me anymore. I couldn't bear to spend another minute there.
I found a hotel near the hospital and checked in. The first thing I did was power off my phone.
The world went quiet.
I lay on the soft king-sized bed, staring at the ceiling, my mind completely blank.
Thirty years of marriage. One long, drawn-out joke.
Dean and I had married for love. I'd defied my parents to marry him—a nobody with nothing to his name. We'd built everything from scratch, going from a cramped studio apartment barely two hundred square feet to a spacious three-bedroom in a good school district.
I thought what we had was unbreakable.
I thought he was the one person who'd always have my back.
Turns out, he'd been carrying a torch for someone else the entire time.
Back then, Myra's parents had looked down on him for being poor, and the two of them were forced apart. What I didn't learn until later was that they'd stayed in contact all those years.
Dean always said Myra had it rough—married a terrible man, divorced, no children. He said we should help her when we could.
I believed him.
I'd been fool enough to go along with it, delivering money and gifts alongside him, even helping her find jobs.
Looking back now, I was nothing but a complete and utter fool.
They were the great love story. What was I?
A convenient placeholder. An extra pair of hands. Nothing more.
And the most laughable part? My own children.
From the time they were small, Dean had filled their heads with stories about how pitiful Aunt Myra was, how hard her life had been. Over the years, Myra became the fragile soul they needed to protect. And me—their actual mother—I became the petty, cold, heartless villain.
Forced into a divorce and still staying in that house, cooking and cleaning like a servant. I must have been out of my mind.
When I turned my phone back on, dozens of missed calls and over a hundred messages flooded in.
All from Marvin and Imogen.
Mom, Dad's surgery is still twenty thousand short. Where are you?
I'm begging you, can you just come and pay the bill?
Effie Fox! If you don't show up, I'm calling the police and reporting you missing!
The last message was from Marvin.
Are you trying to kill this entire family?
I stared at the screen and let out a cold laugh.
Kill them?
They were the ones who had pushed me to the edge, step by step.
I didn't reply. Instead, I dialed my brother, Peter Fox.
He picked up almost immediately.
"Sis, everything go through on your end?"
"All done." I took a deep breath. "I signed the demolition settlement for the old family property."
"Two million dollars. Every last cent. It'll hit the account next week."
Peter was quiet for a moment on the other end.
"Sis... Dean. Is he treating you okay?"
I closed my eyes and pressed every last emotion down.
